Winter
by EllieF
Summary: He'd wonder later if Mello could possibly have known how right he was.


**Notes:** I was delighted to find that there was a total lunar eclipse visible in the UK the night all the Higuchi stuff went down, and I had to write something that used it. Thanks as always to my sanity checker, Vashti.

**Winter**

Matt woke up to someone shaking him.

"C'mon, get up!" That impatient whisper: Mello, of course.

"What time is?"

"Two-thirty, get a fucking move on."

Something landed on his head. Matt groped around, found it was his fleece jacket, and kicked at the blankets until he could sit up. "In the _morning_?"

Mello huffed. He was dressed to go out, with his own jacket, and a black wool cap flattening his bright hair. He'd been preoccupied and sulky for the last few days, but now he looked feverish and excited.

"Okay, okay, I'm up. Turn 'round."

Mello rolled his eyes, but looked away as Matt got dressed as quickly as he could in the dark. He still felt muzzy and slow, but whenever Mello dragged him into something like this, it was always worth it.

He followed Mello through the silent halls, into the moon-flooded common room, out the door to the grounds, where their breath made clouds even before Matt lit a cigarette.

"Where're we going?"

"Out to the hill. Don't whinge," he cut Matt off before he could do just that. "The walk won't kill you."

The grass crunched under their feet, and Matt looked up at the full moon. It seemed huge and heavy the way it sometimes got in autumn. It was kind of spooky. He jogged to catch up with Mello, who was stalking along at his usual quick pace. "What for, Mel?"

"I want you to see something."

Mello flopped onto the grass on the side of the hill that faced away from the House, and sat with his elbows on his knees. Matt sat more carefully beside him, making a face as the damp started to seep into his jeans.

"We're almost fifteen, Matty. Things are going to change."

"What's gotten into you?"

Mello shrugged one-shouldered, staring up at the moon. "You know how historically, the world'll swing one way, but you can't see what's changing until after?"

Matt nodded, even though he didn't see what Mello was getting at yet.

"You ever wonder," Mello went on, "if people feel it coming anyway, before anything even happens? Like in Poland in the '30s, or Russia in 1919. You think they knew?"

"I don't know, man. What do you think's coming?"

"I'm not sure yet. Watch." He pointed to the moon.

Matt hadn't known it was the night of an eclipse until a shadow started to grow across the moon. "Oh, wow." He shivered, and Mello leaned against him, and they sat like that, watching the whole thing.

"You dragged me out here for that?" Matt said, but quietly, when it was over.

"Not just that." Mello looked more peaceful now, but still solemn. "We're brothers, right?"

"Of course."

"I want it to be official." He pulled his switchblade out of his pocket, and Matt could feel himself pale, but he nodded.

Mello shifted around so they were facing each other. "Give me your hand, then."

Matt swallowed hard, and did.

Mello made a quick, straight cut on each of their thumbs, and pressed them together. Matt met his eyes, and he knew what he wanted to say, his own contribution to this ceremony, but it was a moment before he trusted himself not to stammer. "We... I think we should tell our names."

It was Mello's turn to hesitate before nodding, but he didn't look uncertain. He seemed to want to give the moment the weight it deserved. He closed his other hand around their thumbs, still bleeding, still held together, and leaned over and whispered into Matt's ear, "Mihael."

Matt pushed Mello's hair out of the way with unsteady fingers, and whispered back, "Mail." It felt like the most important and daring thing he'd ever done.

Mello tilted his head closer. Just his cheek against Matt's hair, and just for a moment, but it felt like a hug. He said, "Thank you," so quietly that Matt was never sure afterward that he hadn't imagined it.

Then Mello sat up straight and licked the blood—their blood—off his thumb with a grin that made his eyes seem more feral than usual. The spell, if it was a spell, was broken, and Matt let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.

"Give me a cigarette and I'll tuck you back in," Mello said.

"Dude, you're so weird."

A little more than a month later, Matt sat at his window, looking out into the night. He couldn't see the moon for the rain. Mello hadn't said goodbye. Matt played his words back in his mind: _You can't see what's changing until after._ Only one thing could have made him leave like that.

"I don't care what happens," Matt said, to the rain and the night, to the moon he couldn't see, and to one boy traveling alone. "Some things won't ever change."


End file.
